City and county police agencies, customs departments, fire departments, the Secret Service, highway patrol, border patrol, military bases and some prisons in the US and many other countries use dogs to help in law enforcement work.
The breeds of dogs most commonly used in law enforcement are German Shepherds brought to the US from Germany, Belgian malinois, and Labrador retrievers.
Smaller dogs such as beagles are used for searching tasks.
A cocker spaniel had a very successful career in California as a narcotics sniffer.
20 The dogs serve several functions.
Dogs trained to sniff out narcotics are now considered a necessity in drug enforcement.
Dogs have a keen ability to distinguish among hundreds of odors.
They also detect bombs, and find missing persons and criminals often in easily overlooked places.
Police officials claim that a trained dog can search an area for narcotics in half the time it would take five police officers to cover the same territory.
Dogs are also used for crowd control by the Soviets to suppress anti-government protests, by the Italians at soccer games.
Working as a team with police dogs help hunt down and capture criminal suspects.
They have been known to hold on to a suspect, (or occasionally bite,) until a police officer can intervene.
Arson investigators were assisted by a Black Lab who sniffed out evidence of flammable, volatile liquid in a burned out auditorium.
An understaffed prison is experimenting with using dogs to keep prisoners from escaping and to protect prison staff.
